New: Transcript from Q&A with Will Kerslake and Meagan Marie

September 03, 2016
Kate Sykes
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Early this week, official fansites were treated to a private live stream where we were shown the Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration Gamescom demo (including main gameplay and Blood Ties/Lara's Nightmare Croft Manor gameplay). During the demo, we also had a Q&A with Will Kerslake (Senior Designer) and Meagan Marie (Senior Community Manager) who read out a selection of our questions.

What is the best feature of this new edition of 'Rise of the Tomb Raider' game?Alex from Alex’s Tomb Raider Blog/ Tomb Raider World (Spain)

MEAGAN: So this question is actually pretty subjective, but we (Will and I) actually agree that VR is pretty incredible. Right?

WILL: Yeah, I mean it’s been fantastic to be able to work on the new technology. Being able to make VR work and put VR in the manor is really exciting. We were first figuring out how are we going to celebrate 20 years of Tomb Raider, what’s the right thing to do… we planned to do the manor pretty early on. Then to be able to put VR in that space and be able to walk through that space through Lara’s eyes has been a blast.

MEAGAN: Yes, and very recently, as Alex should know, we had a chance to go to Spain and we showed VR in Spain. I think it was the first consumer hands on and eyes on. Seeing everybody’s face light up when they put it on was incredible. There were people who audibly laughed because they were giddy being able to see and inspect everything. True Tomb Raider fans were walking up to every little space and painting and looking at everything in detail. I laughed because we said it was about an hour of new story content, but as a Tomb Raider fan, I’ll be in there for about 2 or 3 hours just looking at everything. It’s very cool.

Rise of the Tomb Raider was crowned by "TIME" as one of the 50 best games of all times. What does it mean to you all guys from Crystal especially with this special version coming out?CW Team from Croft World (Brazil/UK)

WILL: It was super nice to be honored. It was the 50 best and to be number 18 is fantastic. We had to look at that as not just being about Rise. It’s about Tomb Raider as a whole. It’s a 20 year celebration as a legacy. It’s an honor to be a part of a franchise that has been around for this length of time and is so well respected for this length of time.

MEAGAN: Yes, Rise wouldn’t be here without the games that made the foundation and established this incredible formula of puzzles, combat, traversal, and traps. And the character. It was a huge honor and it’s really a testament to how incredible this franchise is 20 years on. It’s wonderful.

What are the top 3 things Crystal are most proud of when it comes to RISE?

AJ. R from Survivor Reborn (USA)

MEAGAN: So we try not to speak for the entire studio but we can say personally what the things are that we are most proud of. For for me, it’s the 20 Year Celebration. It’s all this new content. I think as a nostalgic Tomb Raider fan and as a fan for the last 20 years, asking “How many Easter eggs can we fit in? How many throwbacks and nostalgic hints can be we put into all this content?” That’s something that I’m really proud of. I love that we’re embracing the past and also the future and having fun with things like with the classic Tomb Raider skins which are just so fun to play with. That’s my personal point of pride.

WILL: I know watching the team go through it with the success of the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, being able to make a sequel that really expands – the size of the hubs got bigger, combat got more complicated. There’s so many pieces where it’s very hard when you make a sequel in gaming that really stands out as a big game to really bump it up in so many areas. It’s great to see how the game expanded from Tomb Raider (2013) to Rise. In my personal space, we’ve been playing around in the DLC to really push to the game to interesting areas. Things like Endurance Mode, the team is really proud of the work to make a fully procedural world and run around in a space that changes every time. Bringing that new content and flavor to Tomb Raider has been a lot of fun for us.

Do the PS4 controllers offer any sound/lighting effects?

Max from MaxRaider (USA)

MEAGAN: Yes, the light bar on the PS4 controller lights up when Lara uses the glowstick, in the color of the glowstick.

WILL: I can also speak to specifics regarding VR controls. We do use the controller very physically. An important part of VR is that you really feel like you’re in the space so as you’re moving around through the space. You’ll actually control that by shifting the dual shock around so it’s like you’re using the light on the front of it as your flashlight. We do a lot physically with the controller in that space.

MEAGAN: It’s super cool.

How did you decide on which old school Lara skins to add into the game?

Max from MaxRaider (USA) / Nico from Captain Alban (France)

MEAGAN: This is something that I’m super proud. After writing the book and being immersed in crazy Tomb Raider history for the last 6 months, they asked for suggestions on skins. So I put forth some options and went forward from there. Essentially, it was a hard decision. We wanted something from the original Tomb Raider so we decided on the manor outfit. We thought if we had the default outfit, we wanted it to be the one with her braid. So we did her home outfit from Tomb Raider then the default with the braid from Tomb Raider II. From there, it was picking some of the other big favorites so we thought the bomber jacket was a great touch and the catsuit – because everyone loves the catsuit – and we wanted to get something in there from the Tomb raider IV and V model versus one from II or III. Angel of Darkness because we know how big of fans there are for that game and having it in there is awesome. Even putting the sunglasses on her which I thought was a really fun touch. We went through a lot of options and basically refined it down until we felt we had enough diversity of the models and outfits.

Can we expect something more difficult with the new difficulty mode?

Umberto from Tomb Raider Italy (Italy)

WILL: Extreme Survivor takes all the elements of Survivor mode and now there are no checkpoints in game. You have to find the basecamp and light that because that’s the only place you’ll be able to save. So it really pushes it into that extreme difficulty territory, particularly on some of the big fights that you’ll have to make it all the way through that in order to finish the game.

Are there any plans for any new game localizations to come?

Jirka from Kronika Tomb Raider Czech & Slovakia (Czech Republic)

MEAGAN: We did announce that there is going to be Arabic localization for Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration. We don’t have any additional localization announcements at this time.

“Blood Ties”

[BLOOD TIES DEMO FOOTAGE]

Q & A

When do the events of "Blood Ties" take place: before, after or during the events of the main game?

Nico from Captain Alban (France) / Blu from AspideTR (Italy)

MEAGAN: Blood Ties unlocks immediately after completing Syria and is accessible via the main menu.

How was the process of creating a new Croft Manor? Was it created using the classic games as reference? -CWT

It looks as though the manor is the based off the same model as the previous crystal/movie versions. Why not something completely new? -MR

I can see a lot of the previous manors in this one. Was it intentional to make it look like a mix of some sort or did you find inspiration in those when designing this new iteration? – RS

What was the philosophy behind the conception of this "rebooted" Croft Manor -- was your goal to create something totally new or something similar to previous iterations of the Croft Manor? - Nico

WILL: When we were first thinking about what’s the right content to create for the 20 year celebration, the manor came up right away because it’s something that connects both the old games and the new games. We started to hint at it in Rise. For those who haven’t played it, you actually see the Manor but it’s not a playable space in the main game. We see both memories there as well as seeing Lara there with Jonah in very brief sections when she’s trying to figure out what she’s going to be doing.

WILL: It became a great place to go explore. As far as how we came up with the right spaces. We have Noah who is our treasure trove of all things Croft. He is always there to go, “This needs to be there. This should be this way.” But then we have to look at it from the standpoint of – as with everything in the reboot series, everything is grounded in a real world space. We need to make sure that the structures match the structure you expect them to build. It all continuously makes sense as a real space in our modern timeline. As well as now, the dilapidated state that it’s in and having her not really be a part of it for a while now and now coming back to this space – it’s like, “This is where I came from. I want to make this space special.”

MEAGAN: There’s this freshness and familiarity to it. You can’t have a Croft Manor without a grand beautiful hall and a giant staircase and a library and so on. We hopefully feel like it’s new and fresh but that it’s something that feels like someone’s home for fans.

WILL: The manor is completely playable in 3rd person by default for everybody. In VR, you experience all the story and can go through the whole piece in VR but you do it in first person.

MEAGAN: It’s unreal. It’s so incredible. I have to say that personally I’m really happy about the different types of VR modes. There’s three… comfort, free, and hybrid.

WILL: Yeah, super important with VR is that we know that PlayStation VR may be people’s first experience with VR. We want to ensure that it’s something that’s comfortable for everybody. There isn’t combat within Blood Ties. Blood Ties is all about exploring and story and learning about her past and learning new mysteries in that space. It was the right space for us to do VR where everybody can feel safe and walk through and explore and look at things. You really get to see all of the details. Part of that is the control schemes – we’ve done mass amounts of testing on it internally.

MEAGAN: Yes, internally testing on all of us!

WILL: Yes, we worked with the team to make sure it was good for everybody out there. Where you teleport place to place, everybody feels comfortable with this. You can walk around physically in your living room just like you’re walking around in that virtual space. All the way to the first person control scheme people are used to where you use the sticks. We’re really excited for people to physically move in the space because the more you move physically, the more you feel connected to that other world. That’s where things get exciting in VR.

Are there any extra secrets or collectibles to look out for in the Manor? - Matie

WILL be secrets or maybe some easter eggs of TR games in the Croft Manor? – Alex

WILL there be any throwbacks to the classic games as you explore the manor? – AJ R.

WILL: Yes, it’s the combination. To touch on another question/comment about Winston, memories and comments about things that probably most of you did at some point or another in a previous game with certain freezing devices, we wanted to touch on that entire rich history, both the more recent games as well as the old Tomb Raider classics.

Is Winston alive? Did he leave the manor after Richard’s death? / Can we place him in the freezer? (Is there a zombie version in Lara’s Nightmare? – AJ R from Survivor Reborn, UK)

MEAGAN: We aren’t going to comment definitely on Winston’s status now but you definitely feel his presence in Lara’s past. We do that through some really cool memory bubbles. So Lara will be walking through a room and then all of sudden it’ll glow in this warm light which gives a beautiful contrast to the whole dilapidated building, and it’s Lara remembering these things from the past. It’s taking in these moments where she was really happy or things were hard and challenging. So you will hear from her dad and so on. It’s a really cool throwback.

Will the Croft Manor feature any new traversal and exploration elements compared to the main adventure of Rise of the Tomb Raider?

Marco from Allgame: Tomb Raider (Italy)

WILL: This is very much an adventure game mode, but not heavy on traversal. The preview video we showed was very much focused on moving through the space so you can see what each of the rooms looks like. Each room is filled with documents and relics. Discovering those and piecing those together to solve puzzles is what that space is about.

MEAGAN:

One more question for Blood Ties - Will you be able to move items around and find hidden treasures in the Croft Manor?

Zou and June from Tomb Raider China (China)

WILL: It wouldn’t be Tomb Raider without some pushing and pulling of things. Of course, there’s some mysterious stuff in there.

Do you have to complete both Blood Ties and Lara's Nightmare to return to a zombie free manor any time?

Kate Sykes from The Digger’s Daughter (UK)

WILL: So the two are separated so “Blood Ties” – both of them will become available once you’ve made it past Syria in the core game and have made it to the snow in Siberia. At that point, Blood Ties you can play all the way through as a story experience. When it’s finished, we let you explore the manor anywhere you want to go just to find any other relics you might’ve not been able to find yet. In addition, if you actually complete the campaign story, we will add a few extra relics inside of the manor that you can go find that have references to the reboot Tomb Raider games.WILL: Lara’s Nightmare is very much a focused action-oriented mode. You’re put into a random part of the manor each time and weapon pick ups will move around each time. We won’t get into specifics yet but it’s separated. Within the content of Blood Ties, you don’t need to worry about combat – you just get to explore.

Why does Lara want to go back to the manor and get her heritage?

Audrey from Universo Croft (Brazil)

MEAGAN: This is kind of like a tricky question. I think she’s trying to figure it out herself. She feels this deep connection to her past and her family but it’s also a difficult past and difficult memories so she’s not necessarily come to terms with her place in her world and her place as a Croft and in the family. You need to play it…WILL: Through the course of Rise, you see this transition. In the reboot, you see that she’s just surviving as she’s placed in this terrible circumstance and just wants to stay alive. Now with Rise, we’ve transitioned to, “I’m just going to stay alive” to “I’m going to go find these things. It’s my choice to take on this adventure.” So she takes on the manor as part of that as this way to embrace this, “I am an explorer. I’m going to take what belongs to me as part of my family.”

Are You planning to reveal yet more Lara's family backgroumd?

Jirka from Kronika Tomb Raider Czech & Slovakia (Czech Republic)

MEAGAN: Yes, you will learn a lot about her family. I think we’ll leave it that.

WILL: Yeah, I don’t think we will explain any more than that until you can play.

Are planned new achievements for this DLC (Blood Ties and Lara's Nightmare)?

Blu from AspideTR (Italy)

WILL: Right, so there are special achievements and trophies for all the new 20 Year Celebration content, in addition to all of the things that are part of the core game.

“Lara’s Nightmare”

MEAGAN: So I think we’re onto the next section with Lara’s Nightmare. We’ll give you a little tease of that. As Will was saying, this is a replayable mode. It’s intended to feel very claustrophobic and not necessarily about stealth but moving through this dark haunted manor.

WILL: Yeah, so she’s seeing – in the course of Rise and the previous game – she’s seen a lot of crazy things that play with this concept. In the real world with Blood Ties she’s placed with this nightmare of her uncle trying to take away her home that she grew up as a child. We took this concept of that figurative nightmare and made it a literal nightmare including all of the things she’s seen in the last few DLC’s all stuffed inside the manor.

MEAGAN: Let’s take a look at that…

[LARA’s NIGHTMARE FOOTAGE]

Q & A

MEAGAN: Can you explain a little more about how you win the mode?

WILL: Yes, the nightmare is like a condensed action-oriented experience. So there is a group of these skulls which is a reference to her Baba Yaga experience. They’re now voiced by this demonic version of her uncle. Everything is sort of mixed up like in a bad dream. All of the things that you’re seeing before gets mixed and mashed up together. You have to take out the skulls and everything moves around each time you play. You play for score and it’s a challenge because you have to make it through in one life. It’s not easy. It’s a hard mode to play but we wanted something that was a fun challenge to have people play through.

MEAGAN: So you have to find the skulls, find the key, and then there’s a boss battle at the end. There’s some stuff there that we think you would really like. In particular, with the setting – it’s quite a different feel in this setting as compared to the Blood Ties exploration DLC. That’s one thing that people were asking when we demoed VR – is something going to jump out at people? No, that is saved for Lara’s Nightmare.

MEAGAN: So we kind of touched on this but it’s the jumble of the past experience. Reliving a nightmare everything is mixed...

WILL: All the terrifying things she’s seen is wrapped around this concept to give a real fun action oriented experience.

MEAGAN: It was something that was really interesting… originally, zombies or the undead were introduced to Rise because it was something that people were very interested in. We did a lot of testing when we were trying to figure out what the extended content for DLC would be and it was something that tested very high that people wanted to see that. It was a challenge to figure out what do zombies look like in a Tomb Raider universe.

WILL: Like Cold Darkness, everything in our reboot universe has to be grounded in a modern world. For the soviet base – we won’t get into it too much if you haven’t played it yet - in Cold Darkness, Trinity soldiers were being contorted by this base and so taking that concept with this nightmare. Everything that she’s seen is being jumbled and brought into the manor and this space.

MEAGAN: And supernatural has always been a part of Tomb Raider so it’s not too far removed…

Will there be new weapons and/or special ammo to defeat the waves of zombies? Do you have to earn / find them first?

Blu from AspideTR (Italy) / Ani from Rise of the Tomb Raider Web (Germany) / Zou and June from Tomb Raider China (China)

WILL: When you’re playing the nightmare, you’re always waking up in a different room. Playing with the nightmare concept, everything internally is random so you wake up in a different room, everything is placed differently and is randomized. You don’t know where the skulls are or your weapon pick-ups are. They always move around. Each time that you try to do a run at it, it’s a different experience because you’re going to have to go find it.

MEAGAN: Yes, which makes it even harder especially if you get nervous like I do. The zombies scared me a lot and so I freaked out and then they killed me.

Given the title 'Lara's Nightmare', why did you pick zombies specifically?

Jacky from Tomb Raider Passion (Bulgaria)

MEAGAN: We touched on this. It’s the zombies and Cold Darkness Awakened and the wolves from Baba Yaga and the skulls which are a reference to that content as well. It’s reference points to things you’ve seen before in the various DLC.

Will the effects of Yamatai be experienced in this game, like guilt transformed into zombie Roth, Alex and Grim?

Sergio F. from RaidersZone (Spain)

MEAGAN: We’re sticking just to the elements from Rise and the thematic angle from her uncle so you won’t see Roth, Alex and Grim come back.

Can we choose a difficulty mode?

Umberto from Tomb Raider Italy (Italy)

WILL: Yes, everything in the Expedition modes of Rise has the full range of difficulty modes to choose from.

What's the difference between Lara's Nightmare and Cold Darkness Awakened since it looks like both of the two are focusing on combat?

TombCrow from GMLY.info (China)

WILL: Nightmare is very much a short session focused combat space within the manor. It’s all combat focused. There’s just this constant stream of guys coming in that you’ll have to deal with. Cold Darkness Awakened is more puzzle oriented. That’s the story of an old Soviet base that’s been active or turned on by the Trinity soldiers and turned them into these infected, crazy guys. Think the 28 Days Later sort of concept. In that one, you’re there to only shut the place down because people are starting to leak out of it into Siberia and the Remnant villages. There’s a lot of pressure there to figure out those puzzles while you deal with these waves of infected soldiers.

Does the classic skins work for both Blood Ties and Lara's Nightmare or just for Expedition Modes?

Ricardo Sousa from The Croft Tomb (Portugal)

WILL: All expedition modes – Lara’s Nightmare is part of the Expedition Mode - classic skins work for all the Expedition Modes. For Blood Ties, that’s a very specific story element so we had you dress in what you were dressed in the core game when you were in London.

MEAGAN: You can play as Classic Lara from her manor outfit while defending it in Lara’s Nightmare.

By "repayable gameplay" mode, what exactly does that mean? Was it separated from Blood ties?Zou and June from Tomb Raider China (China)

WILL: Lara’s Nightmare is very much about getting a score and competing with friends on the leaderboards, whereas Blood Ties is much lengthier and about walking through the space and exploring.

Will there be stealth or is it pure action?

FearEffect from TurningPointWeb (France)

WILL: It is very much an action mode. In Cold Darkness Awakened, you can sneak around but in the manor you’re going to fight.

MEAGAN: It’s tight spaces and corridors and you have to keep moving and finding ammo and resources.

WILL: You’ll constantly have enemies streaming out of the walls so you just gotta keep moving.

“Co-Op Endurance Mode”

[CO-OP ENDURANCE MODE FOOTAGE]

Q & A

Is it possible to play co-op “Endurance Mode” in local (2 player in same console) or only online? / Can we play offline?

WILL: So it’s only an online network thing so it’s not two players on one machine.

Can both players share resources or experience points or will each gather their own supplies?Klara from KakiLaraCroft.blog.CZ (Czech Republic) / Marco from Allgame: Tomb Raider (Italy)

WILL: The big one for co-op is we wanted players to work together as a team. As long as you stay near each other, anytime someone picks up resources, you both get it. You share everything by default. If you run in completely different directions, you won’t share because you obviously won’t be working together.

Other than playing with a second party what are the differences between playing single player and co-op in gameplay?

Tom@LCO from Lara Croft Online (USA)

WILL: There’s several new mechanics. All the traps are more difficult. We made all the traps more difficult because you can pick each other up. You have a fixed number of times that you can revive. If you make it to the bottom of the crypt and open up the sarcophagus or codex, you actually gain a life back and have an extra revive. But the caves and the crypts can be very challenging because all the traps are instantaneous.

MEAGAN: Yes the traps don’t slow down now. In co-op, you really need to look out for them and look for the pressure plates. They’re as fast as physics would allow for something to swing down and impale you.

WILL: Yeah, you will get killed in the caves… So on top of that, while the two of you run through the space, you share food and resources that you find. You have to leave together because no one is going to get left behind. So the core thing is about keeping those players together.

Will the players be able to explore separately?

Miguel Marques from Lara Croft PT (Portugal)

MEAGAN: Again you can… but we encourage you to stick by each other.

WILL: You can! You can run in completely different directions if you want to, but now you don’t have a partner to help you out. Generally, when people want to play together, they want to play together with a friend. But we can’t stop you if you want to run around in different parts of the forest, have at it!

MEAGAN: If you lose track of each other, you can hit a button to turn on beacons to help find them and so on.

WILL: You can always find them with survival instinct but if someone goes down – is hit by a trap or loses a fight to a bear – the other person has about a minute to get over to pick you up otherwise the round is going to end and both of you will die.

Each player has his own level of hunger, cooling and skills points? Is possible to donate food / weapons / equipment to 2nd player?

Aspidetr (Italy)

WILL: Yes, so each player does have their own hunger and warmth level. You can actually see little indicators to let you know when your friend is starving. You might hear a comment about it that suggests you may need some food. In the case of food, anything you pick up off the ground, if they’re nearby, that can be shared. In the case of a fire, if one of you lights a fire, the other person can run over and warm up. We don’t have a direct player to player sharing because that can be abused such as if you’re playing with someone you don’t know, they can constantly interrupt you. We didn’t want that because we wanted a fun experience for both players to enjoy playing in the space.

Will Lara need to find twice as much food, and any other element needed for survival because there are more people with her?

Emma from Okh Eshivar (USA)

WILL: Because both are shared, both give you all of the food out of the resource. We want people to play together and have a good time together as opposed to “now I have a friend playing and it’s twice as hard to survive.” You can share food together and it shouldn’t be more difficult.

It seems both players can share and support each other for most of the resources, such as fire, medical, etc., what items/things that can not be shared?

TombCrow from GMLY.info (China)

WILL: So certain things didn’t make sense to be shared. In Endurance, if you find a weapon, it didn’t make sense to suddenly duplicate two guns because it’s a real physical thing. If you pick up a gun, you’re the only person that has that gun. Same with the soviet chests that you open. Other than that, the artifacts and so forth – your score is a combined score. Everything is about you working together as a co-op team.

Will there be any combined moves or techniques, which require the two players to cooperate, like in LC: The Guardian of Light or LC: The Temple of Osiris?

Marco from Allgame: Tomb Raider (Italy)

WILL: We do have revives. We don’t have the grapple hook from LCTOO or Guardian of Light, for example.

How exactly does the expedition card selection work in co-op mode?

Matie from TombRaiderS.hu (Hungary)

WILL: Normally in expeditions, you have 5 cards and 5 challenges. In the co-op mode, you both get to choose a couple of challenges and cards. Those cards will be applied with the exception of costumes – you are the only one who gets to see you in a costume. Otherwise, cards are applied to both players. So you can play with cards you haven’t picked up or own yet if your friend decides to use them.

Can the Endurance mode achievements/trophies be acquired through co-op play? (e.g. surviving for 10 days)

Matie from TombRaiderS.hu (Hungary)

WILL: Yes, default achievements can be acquired and there’s also new co-op based achievements and challenges that are added with this mode.

What is the best tip you can give to the players to survive the largest number of days in Co-Op Endurance Mode?

Alex from Alex’s Tomb Raider Blog/Tomb Raider World (Spain)

WILL: Stick together is a good one.

MEAGAN: Actually cooperate…

WILL: Yes, work together and wait until your friend is there before you pull the snacks off that wolf that you killed. The other piece is that you’re still trying to survive. It’s a hard, harsh place in the Siberian wilderness. Even if you have a friend out there, you could be exploring and suddenly a bear will show up… you may have to play conservatively because it’s still a tough environment to be out in even though you got a friend.

MEAGAN: Yes, I always get distracted by the relics and artifacts underground and I tend to go into them unprepared. Don’t do that. Don’t get cocky even if there’s another person with you. Make sure you have a heat source – I like to carry the lanterns because that helps. Make sure you hunted something big and are fed because some of those tombs go on for a long time and are huge.

Will there be new cards or achievements especially for the co-op?

Minerva from LarasGeneration.De (Germany)

WILL: With 20 year celebration, we have new achievements for Lara’s Nightmare and Croft Manor and Co-Op Endurance Mode in both PlayStation 4 and Xbox. [END STREAM]

Kate is a writer, actress, cosplayer and filmmaker living in the UK. She has written for fansites and guest posted on the Official Tomb Raider Blog. She has also written fan films "Hunted" (based on Tomb Raider 2013) and "Legends" (a Tomb Raider/Uncharted crossover).